“Ah, Vekeus, it’s been a while.”
“It has, Theocydes.”
Places where individual Voidborn beings could gather were few and far between outside of Voidborn territories. The Silver Stallion was one such place, a small Decay Lord pit stop on the very edge of the Ventra Expanse, a large area of the Periuniversal Void that was once a very mixed territory but had been abandoned by the majority of the local godly groups and organizations after a lengthy war with no real winners. Since there was no overall ruling presence, the Ventra Expanse became a good place to find a tiny corner to hide away in and do one’s own thing. As long as you kept to yourself and didn’t bother others, no one really cared, and the unwritten rule was that passing travellers were to be left unharmed at all times.
This unwritten rule had spurred a lot of pop-up places that offered travelling services, and, despite being unregulated, the Ventra Expanse was an unofficial shortcut for both Decay Lords and ‘Adogtic’ Voidborns, Voidborns that didn’t belong to a specific cult, militia or other group and kept to themselves. While the majority of beings, Adogtic Voidborns included, rightly believed that the Voidborns overall were a hugely dangerous collection of entities, Adogtic Voidborns often did their best to just focus on their own projects.
As to why Voidborns were so dangerous? Well, since most of them would just somewhat spontaneously pop into existence with no real concept of time, born in perpetual darkness and with the ability to bend said darkness to their will, most Voidborns only really understood power and self-preservation, meaning that a singular Voidborn would kill or subjugate anything they considered weaker than themselves, but would bow to the might of a more powerful Voidborn. A particularly powerful Void Lord could easily create a vast empire of underlings, all happy to serve them.
It was possible to teach a Voidborn to respect others, but the process normally involved having a Life Goddess enslave them and imprison them inside a universe for a bit. Forced to experience things like natural creation, the birth of life, the flow of time and the existence of beings weaker than themselves, some Voidborns would come away with a sense of understanding, and at the very least would tolerate non-Voidborns. The majority of Life Goddess-bound Voidborns though preferred to remain with the Life Goddesses, not really wanting to share what they had.
Theocydes and Vekeus were both former bound Voidborns, having been enslaved and eventually freeing themselves from various Life Goddesses. While Vekeus was pretty typical of such a Voidborn, escaping off and deciding to set his sights on hunting down and killing Corruptions, Theocydes had freed himself in a more violent way, killing his jailer and her Time Drake, while twisting and stealing her child into his own attack animal. Then again, Vekrus wasn’t THAT typical. For reasons he could never explain, Vekeus had no memories of his time as a bound Voidborn.
Really, Theocydes couldn’t remember when he’d originally met Vekeus, who had quite a striking look, mixing metallic red in with his silver and gold plating, and having a somewhat snouted, animal-like plated face rather than the masks almost all Voidborns wore. Theocydes didn’t wear a mask either, but his face was so heavily armoured that only his eyes were visible anyway. Theocydes though stuck to pure silver only, having ditched his gold plating recently.
The Silver Stallion was mostly empty, and the only other beings around were a pack of Time Drakes in one corner and a handful of travelling Decay Lords in the other. The bar was run by am old Decay Lord Trio that had been a member of a now dead sect known as the Ventra, which the expanse had originally been named after. The three of them never said much, they just served drinks then went to the back and would get drunk themselves. Vekeus had grabbed the drinks from the bar and sat himself down next to Theocydes. Being Voidborns, they blatantly sat at the biggest table in the bar, even though there were only two of them.
“So, how are the slaves, how is the cloning?” Vekeus asked. “You still have that strange kid of yours?”
Theocydes removed the armour plating from his mouth so he could sip his drink. Voidborns didn’t need to drink or eat, but since this was a social gathering, both he and Vekeus were partaking in the ingestion of fluids. The drinks didn’t actually matter, Theocydes didn’t really have a sense of taste, and Vekeus always ordered the same thing, two cans of fizzy, heavily caffeinated, chemical-filled fruit-flavoured sugar-waters, because that was all Vekeus could really taste.
“Ugh. Long story short, no. Bastard got turned against me by some Decay Lords and a very strange Decayon and Life Goddess hybrid and sprayed my entire physical form across the walls of a Deathven-aligned Decay Lord ship’s cargo bay.”
Vekeus just shrugged. “Huh. I mean, you did treat him awfully. Better than the Life Goddess that owned you both, but still. Where is the little thing?”
“Somehow Kallis and my second highest ranked Thoulos managed to make it to a Deathven sector. They earned their escape. Apparently Letharus managed to make himself into a Decay Lord, so I certainly cannot fault him or his power.”
“What about the Decay Lords?” Vekeus’s mouth was accessible without taking off his plating. Weirdly for a Voidborn, Vekeus was very fleshy, but his flesh was buried under tons of metal plating. Theocydes only really had flesh in his head and chest in comparison, the rest of him was pure armour and pockets of the void itself.
Again, Theocydes grunted. “For one Elder Decay Lord, two normal Decay Lords and a hybrid, they were-”
“Hang on, you were beaten by THREE Decay Lords?” Vekeus suddenly exclaimed. “I thought you were attacked by a whole sect or something? What in the Eternal Darkness happened to you?”
“The Decay Lords were not a threat. The elder one was no trouble at all, I dealt with him with ease. The Flame and the Psion, the Psion was pretty much equal to my Letharus and they seemed unwilling to fight each other, and the Flame just incinerated Rethanius after they realized that Rethanius was an unredeemable monster, but they both fell to me as well. The hybrid tricked Kallis and… well… When I managed to reform and went after them for revenge, that damn hybrid…”
“Well?”
“The little monster teleported me into a sun and forced me to respawn.”
Vekeus snickered. “You sure it wasn’t just a Life Goddess fucking with you?”
“I am certain. Either way, I sinned, I was screwed, I needed to find a way to kill a Life Goddess hybrid that could manipulate the Void the way we can. Those three Decay Lords were insanely defensive of something they believed to also be a Decay Lord, tricked me into thinking the hybrid killed itself and suggested I leave the Goldblessed, because considering dying ‘sinful’ was, in hindsight, pretty stupid.”
“Hm…” Vekeus thought to himself for a moment. “To be fair, they ARE right. The idea that using our Void-given ability to respawn ourselves is sinful is very stupid. Is that why you’re pure silver now?”
Theocydes nodded. “Indeed. I’m completely Adogtic now. Not that… there are any Goldblessed left…”
“What did you do?”
The silvered Voidborn sipped his drink. “I, uh, got rid of them.”
“What did you do?” Vekeus repeated himself, staring directly at Theocydes.
“Idiots were going to start yet another pointless conflict with the local Kronothrax Legion. I escaped the last three by being bound, and since I was considered a sinner, I would be put on the front lines to fight. So I secretly moved my respawn point and my spare bodies, left a parting gift and sent a message to the Kronothrax with the Goldblessed HQ’s location.”
Vekeus grunted. “I WOULD be annoyed at the needless death of other potentially reworkable Voidborns, but I’m a former Golden Protector, and both our old cults were pretty damn bad. What have you been doing since?”
“Nothing much. Considered recloning my servants but decided just to go back to Corruption clearing and data scanning. Found this really nice, big, empty area that cleared out after a major Life Goddess vanished and I have been enjoying the peace and quiet. Well, until Ahkron showed up.”
“UGHHHHH!” Vekeus nearly slammed his drink down. “That asshole.”
“He forced some respawns out of you too?” Theocydes remained calm, although the Time Drakes in the corner had totally noticed Vekeus’s outburst. None of the Decay Lords present seemed to care.
“Ten, to be exact. Bastard just… jumped me after I was finished clearing out some Corruption. You know my respawn is on my ship, right? He just toyed with me and spawncamped me until I managed to keep myself alive long enough to explain that all I do is kill Corruption…” Vekeus tutted, then sipped his drink again. “I do not get some Voidborns. Especially ones like the Ancient Collector.”
“No, me neither…” Theocydes tutted a little. “I actually felt bad. I was going to just wait for him to pass, but I saw Akhron just tear a Decay Lord Purifier ship apart and decided to send out some warnings, including to the three Decay Lords that had forced me to respawn.”
Vekeus laughed. “Since when did you care?”
“My friend, I do not care about much, but attacking Purifiers is, to put it nicely, a dick move. Only Periuniversal Void entities that will try and save anyone from Corruption, regardless of their affinity, that are also willing to do intra-universal work as well. On the plus side, the Purifiers did manage to survive and we don’t need to worry about Ahkron any more.”
“Yeaaaaah…” Vekeus hesitated. “That… I didn’t think I’d live long enough to hear about the Ancient Collector perishing. And I’m a Voidborn myself.”
Theocydes went back to his drink, thinking to himself. As far as he was aware, Vekeus was quite a young Voidborn, and that was why he’d been captured by a Life Goddess so easily. But Vekeus was also inherently a pretty noble being. Trustworthy. He deserved to know this little bit of powerful truth.
“You want some interesting information?” Theocydes asked.
Vekeus tilted his head to one side. “What sort of information?”
“I know who killed Ahkron.”
“You do?”
Theocydes nodded. “Indeed. I may have mentioned that I warned the Decay Lords that had forced me to respawn. But their hybrid was not with them. It turns out, the hybrid was captured by a pair of Life Goddesses and made into an intra-universal deity and somehow beat Ahkron at his own game.”
“Huh…” Vekeus clearly had no idea what to do with this new information.
“You want more info?”
“I mean, of course.”
“The same hybrid that killed Ahkron also killed Olohmega. And apparently Kenostaton too, but I cannot confirm that one since the universe Kenostaton was in, I think Ahkron destroyed it.”
Vekeus blinked. “Kenostaton is dead?”
“Not sure how or when, if I am honest, but Letharus at the time picked up a LOT of Life Goddess radio chatter when it happened.”
After taking a sip of his drink, Vekeus awkwardly stared at the table. “Wow. Between both our cults going extinct, the Stolen Prince being killed, Olohmega and his ilk getting demolished and the death of the Ancient Collector himself, plus I heard the Old Mind Gatherer got killed by a Life Goddess and the Athanathean League also was destroyed, that’s pretty much all the local prominent Voidborns out of the picture. What’s even left, the Crystal Doom and their stupid war against that Decay Lord sect that they still haven’t won yet?”
Theocydes was unbothered. “That is fine. Means there is more space for us Adogtic Voidborns.”
“HAH!” Vekeus laughed, heartily this time. “I guess you’re right.” He raised his drink, and Theocydes raised his too. “To us sane Voidborns, I guess.”
“To us. Cheers.”